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The Digital Ape

how to live (in peace) with smart machinesNigel Shadbolt, Roger Hampson

'This is a brilliantly readable, genuinely cutting-edge book that is also often very entertaining. Of all the recent studies of automation and AI, The Digital Ape stands head and shoulders above the rest. Shadbolt and Hampson have written a landmark book.'

Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future and The Internet is Not the Answer

'Nigel Shadbolt is one of the most fascinating and important scientists alive today.'

Jim Al-Khalili

'There has never been a more important time to discuss what it means to be human, in the past, now, and in the future. This is a book for anyone interested in getting behind the headlines and understanding how technology is impacting our world. The writers are two masters in their field who are not only erudite but immensely humane and compassionate.'

Martha Lane Fox

‘[W]e should be grateful to Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Roger Hampson for pausing for breath and helping us to think through the true significance of our latest technological developments.’

Financial Times

How smart machines are transforming us all — and what we should do about it.

The smart machines revolution is re-shaping our lives and our societies. Here, Nigel Shadbolt (one of Britain’s leading authorities on artificial intelligence) and Roger Hampson dispel terror, confusion, and misconception. We are not about to be elbowed aside by a rebel army of super-intelligent robots of our own creation. We were using tools before we became Homo sapiens, and will continue to control them. How we exercise that control — in our private lives, in employment, in politics — and make the best of the wonderful opportunities, will determine our collective future well-being.

'This is a brilliantly readable, genuinely cutting-edge book that is also often very entertaining. Of all the recent studies of automation and AI, The Digital Ape stands head and shoulders above the rest. Shadbolt and Hampson have written a landmark book.'

Andrew Keen, author of How to Fix the Future and The Internet is Not the Answer

'Nigel Shadbolt is one of the most fascinating and important scientists alive today.'

Jim Al-Khalili

'There has never been a more important time to discuss what it means to be human, in the past, now, and in the future. This is a book for anyone interested in getting behind the headlines and understanding how technology is impacting our world. The writers are two masters in their field who are not only erudite but immensely humane and compassionate.'

AUTHORS

Nigel Shadbolt

Sir Nigel Shadbolt is one of the UK’s foremost computer scientists. He is a leading researcher in artificial intelligence and was one of the originators of the interdisciplinary field of web science. He is Principal of Jesus College Oxford and a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute which he co-founded with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Both of them leading the development of the highly acclaimed data.gov.uk website. In 2010, he joined the UK government’s Public Sector Transparency Board — overseeing Open Data releases across the public sector. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, a Fellow and former President of the British Computer Society. He was knighted in 2013 for ‘services to science and engineering’.

Roger Hampson

Roger Hampson is an academic and public servant. He was chief executive of the London Borough of Redbridge for 16 years until early 2016. Redbridge has a strong reputation for web-based innovation in service delivery, engagement of citizens, and the publication of data. He was a director of social services for many years, and also ran other council departments in parallel. He pioneered innovations in the mixed economy of social care. Until 1986, he was an academic economist of social policy, latterly research fellow at the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent. PSSRU was and remains the world leader in the promotion of efficiency in social and health care by the rigorous analysis of data. He was a member of the Local Public Data Panel, and a non-executive director of the Open Data Institute. He has published on plain language; the economics of political advertising; community care; social services; and reasoning in public life.